Imatges de pàgina
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the sides of the acclivities on each side, and the mountain paths also were alive with the gathering together of the people, approaching in merry groups, or individually, towards the same spot. Peasants from the plains of Piemont, and strangers from the French frontier swelled the crowd; and the street was so densely occupied, that it was no easy matter to push on to the wider part of the village dignified by the name of Piazza, where the wares and merchandise were exposed to sale. Beyond this, towards the bridge thrown over the Angrogna torrent, which tumbles into the Pelice, and as far as the road that divides off to San Giovanni and Luserna, the whole space on each side was allotted to those who had brought their mules, asses, sheep, goats, and cows to market. These animals and some of their wild looking owners, the mountain stream, and grove of chesnuts on its banks, its long wooden bridge, the water-mill, the Catholic church and Maison Curiale, when seen from the spot from which the annexed sketch of the entrance into La Torre was taken, presented a striking foreground to the fine distant prospect, breaking in over the village, and closed by Castelluzzo to the left, and by the rocky heights of Tagliaretta and Vandelin in the centre and towards the right. Few persons can enter La Torre without feeling that as soon as they have crossed its bridge, they are in a new country-that which they have left behind them, even San Giovanni,

belongs to the great plain of Piemont, but now they are in the valleys: mountains enclose them on each side, and they are more and more walled in by rock and cliff, the further they advance. The roaring Pelice is seldom lost to the eye or ear; its noisy tributary streams are crossed at short intervals. There is no longer the undulating landscape, with green or variegated slopes, and extensive levels of lowland, where abundant corn and grass attest the bounty of nature; but there is the abrupt and broken ground, there is rock contending with soil, and the elements with man. The earth still pours forth her riches in places, but it is only in places the field, or ridge waving with grain, is immediately contiguous to a mass of crags torn from the crest that breaks the clouds, or to a bed of sand or stones brought down with the waters. These features increase and become more marked as you ascend this or any Alpine valley; patches of cultivation become thinner; the vine, the walnut, and the chesnut give way to the pine-this too at last disappears, and a wilderness of cliff, assuming a thousand formidable or grotesque forms, proclaims that such wild places are only for the occasional retreat, and not for the habitation of man. The pathways that lead to these rocky summits narrow as they ascend; rugged and more rugged is every access: at last the traces of footsteps disappear; the adventurer makes his way over a debris that has fallen from above, and tells

that more may yet fall and crush him; the precipice appears to yawn for him; but the very danger is inviting, and he urges on his onward pace, not only to see more of these stern dominions of the eagle and the vulture, but because he has a pleasure in sounding his own courage, in trying the strength of his nerves, and proving to himself and to others, that he is not to be outdone.

By some of the least arduous of these paths, many of the people, and some of the cattle had come to the fair of La Torre, anxious to obtain the amount of their rents or taxes, or of some money demand, by selling a mule, a cow, or a few sheep or goats. I know that some of these traffickers came fifty miles at the least, and crossed the main chain of the Alpine barrier between France and Italy, to carry back thirty or forty francs into Provence or Dauphiné, and that this journey is risked every year for the same purpose.

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In the booths I recognised the cottons of Manchester, and the hardware of Birmingham, and was made to smile by the earnestness with which I was assured that some paltry knives and scissars, of the very worst and hastiest manufacture, the refuse of our own markets, were real English." But the hardware of the continent is, generally speaking, so very inferior to our own, that it is no wonder to hear a blade puffed off, which, bad as we might consider it, rises high in value above the common articles of the same

sort of France and Italy. Coarse woollen cloths, and wearing apparel of all kinds, commodities of household use, implements of husbandry and handicraft, fruit, vegetables, and corn, were the principal things exposed to sale. A few toy-stalls were decorated in their most attractive array to cause longings and heart-burnings among the Vaudois children, who accompanied their parents to the fair. There was also some display of finery, and gawdy ribbons, and embroidered handkerchiefs of silk and gauze, were suspended in alluring lines to tempt the daughters of vanity, and to turn the heads of the damsels of the mountains.

One little trait of character pleased me excessively. I observed the eye of a boy of ten years of age resting with admiring, perhaps with wishful gaze, upon the treasures of one of the toy stalls. He was the son of a pastor, and I desired him to tell me what he would like to have among the glittering and amusing objects before him. He modestly declined making any choice. In vain I urged him to select something. He could not be tempted to accept my offer. At last I bought an English knife, and put it into his hand; he then burst into tears, and it was with the utmost difficulty, and only at the command of one of his relations, that he could be persuaded to put it into his pocket. The secret of his tears and reluctance was this. He was fearful lest his longing

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